The Night Before the Morning After
by wondertitch
Summary: Hermione's depressed, so Fred's taken it upon himself to cheer her up.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: The Night Before the Morning After**

**Author: Wondertitch**

**Summary: Hermione's depressed, so Fred finds a way to cheer her up.**

**Rating: PG13**

**Pairing: Fred/Hermione**

**WARNING: I can't remember if there's any bad lanuage, indication of het sexual activity...**

**Disclaimer: Fine, I have stolen these characters and used them to perform my whim, I own nothing. Ok?**

**The Night Before the Morning After**

Slowly the Order trudged through the front door of their week old headquarters. At the door, an older couple greeted each and every one of them, offering food and drinks. They were Mr and Mrs McGonagall-Banks, cousins of Professor McGonagall on her father's side, and seeing as they were rich, owned a huge house and had been close to her all of their life, they were only to happy to allow their massive house in the country to become a Headquarters for a war they knew nothing about. The most surprising thing about the entire event was that McGonagall was muggle born, seeing as she had never mentioned it before.

Hermione entered the building just as downtrodden as the others, followed by the Weasley twins who were somewhat chirpier. As the group crammed into the large (but still not big enough for the entire army) living room, it became a race for the sofas and chairs, everyone using the last of their strength to find a place to rest.

"Well," Lupin began wearily, "that was more of a victory than a defeat. We're all still here, aren't we?" he asked unsure to Moody, who nodded. "And we know that they are a few down. Now, I recommend eating well and a good night's sleep. Molly?" He said, turning to the red headed housewife who had just walked in.

"Yes." She said, with forced sweetness. She had been told by Mr Weasley not to get involved with the fighting, and ever since she had put on this over exaggerated mother character to the entire army, telling them what to do, when and how to do it, then telling them off if they didn't listen. Mind, it did mean she was cooked all of the meals, and everyone was thankful for that.

Hermione sighed, and climbed the rest of the stairs. Ever since… what had happened, she stayed away from most of the group. She walked the two fleets of stairs to the room she had claimed in the struggle for a good bed, and opened the door to the small bedroom. Despite being small, it housed a double bed that invaded most of the space in the room.

With a thump, she fell onto the bed and crawled to the top. 4 months. 4 months they had been fighting, everyday getting no further into stopping Voldemort. And it wasn't without its losses.

Neville, Dean, Seamus, Tonks and Luna. Hermione winced, trying to block the images that came with just thinking about her name. Harry too, though only in spirit. Ron had seemingly regressed into an eleven year old again to cope with the constant mothering, all of her Professors and older friends spent all of their time in the basement planning and even the McGonagall-Banks seemed to be suffering.

In fact, it occurred to her, that the only two people to not have lost all of their personality were Fred and George, just as they burst through her door.

"Hey Hermione," Fred said, with a smirk.

"Mum wants to know if you're planning to 'stop sulking and come and eat something'." George said, finishing a perfect imitation of his mother.

"Nah thanks, guys." She answered glumly, suppressing a smile.

"Yeah,"

"We knew you'd say that."

"We told her for you." Fred finished.

"We've got something to, you know,"

"Cheer you up."

Hermione raised her eyebrow, she highly doubted it. "What?"

"Fire Whiskey!" The two chorused, producing a bottle each that Hermione hadn't even been aware they were hiding.

"Come on… just a sip." Fred said wickedly.

"Well, seeing as you worked to hard to bring it to me." Hermione shrugged, moving so the two could find a place to sit.

A couple of hours later and it was official, Hermione was roaring drunk and couldn't stop laughing.

"It wasn't that funny." Fred said, despite giggling himself.

"I – know – I – can't – stop." Hermione said, between giggles.

"Now, you must calm yourself." Fred said, straightening his face. Hermione did her best to copy him, but when she saw his lip quiver she couldn't help turning into a giggling mess on her bed, quickly joined by Fred.

"Hey, where's George?" Hermione asked suddenly, still giggling slightly.

Her question was answered with a loud snore. The pair looked at each other and crawled to the end of the bed, where the snore had come from. Lying there, clutching an empty bottle tightly to his chest , was George, sound asleep.

Fred and Hermione looked at each other and laughed again.

"I wondered where the second bottle was." Hermione said, frowning. "Greedy pig."

"I guess we'd better be off." Fred sighed, rolling off of the bed and landing on his feet.

"You've done that before." Hermione chuckled, rather impressed.

"Hell yeah." The twin slurred, straightening his jumper. "Come on George, we're o-"

Hermione grabbed his sleeve. "Please don't go." Her eyes were suddenly full of fear; Fred was grounded on the spot with worry.

He sat down next to her, "What's wrong sweetie?" His voice was deathly serious.

"I'm scared…"

"Of what?"

"Of falling asleep. And seeing it again." Hermione sat upright. Her eyes began filling with water.

"Seeing what?" Fred asked bewildered.

"I should have saved her, Fred, but instead I froze." Hermione looked at her duvet, tears falling onto the material and temporarily staining it. "I killed her."

Sighing, Fred pulled the hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "What happened to Luna isn't your fault. You tried your best, that's all she or anyone else could have asked of you." He held her chin and pulled it to face him. She looked so beautiful through the tears, so adorable. She looked like all she needed was reassuring. Then, before he knew what he was really doing…

Her lips were so soft, she tasted like Fire Whiskey and something else. Something he could only describe as her taste. And boy, did she taste good. He wanted more of it, more of this fantastic Hermione taste, when it pulled away from him.

"George." She said, staring at him.

"No, I'm Fred." He thought she had worked out which one was which by now.

"No, idiot, George!" She said, pointing at the unconscious body on the floor.

"Oooooh." Fred jumped to his feet, picked up his brother and quickly left the room. Well, as quickly as he could whilst carrying his own weight, which Hermione noticed was surprisingly fast.

She stared at the door for a few seconds, swaying ever so slightly. Then wiped her face of tears. _God, that was embarrassing. _Hermione thought, _probably scared the guy off._

With a bang, Fred opened the door and winced. "Everyone's either in bed or in the basement."

"So we need to be quiet?" Hermione asked, bewildered and not really understanding the statement the man before her had just come out with.

He shrugged, clearly not understanding it either. Next thing either of them knew, they were kissing again. Fred pulled away for a second, swiftly removed his jumper then went back to kissing Hermione, who then began to giggle.

"What?" Fred said breathlessly. "I was hot?"

"I'm not about to deny that." Hermione said with a shrug. And she kissed him again.

Slowly, the pair leaned back against the bed, until Fred was lying on top of Hermione.

The rest, as they say, is drunken history.

**Read and Review people, then I'll post the next morning.**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Morning After the Night Before**

Fred jumped at the sound of his name. Well, at least he thought he had, but there was no one there. Wherever there was… He was actually finding it really difficult to remember where he was. Slowly he opened his eyes; fearful of the sun he was very aware at this crucial time in the morning, to see that he was Hermione's room, in bed with a very naked Hermione also noticing how very naked he was.

That's when the drunken veil began to fall off of his memory, and he remembered everything from last night, all of it.

He rolled over, facing the bushy haired beauty beside him. She was lying on her front, using her right hand as a pillow and her left arm falling off of the bed, and the duvet was only just covering the small of he back. For the first time in months she looked calm and Fred found an unusual pit in his stomach just looking at her.

He watched his hand as it reached out and followed the trail of her spine up to her neck and before he could stop himself, he was slowly stroking her soft cheek. Hermione looked serene and with this serenity came even more beauty. God, he was thinking like some crazy mature lovey-dovey adult. _What sort of weird hang over is this?_

Suddenly, Hermione stirred and Fred whipped his hand back.

"Mornin'" Hermione grumbled.

"Mornin'. How'd you sleep?" Fred asked, moving back a safe distance as Hermione grabbed some more duvet to cover herself.

"Fabulous! Alcohol has a fantastic affect on the mind," She said stretching, "No dreams whatsoever."

"Well, I never expected that to happen." Fred shrugged, after a few moments of silence.

"Nope." Hermione said, rolling over to face him. "How much do you remember?"

"A lot actually; you were pretty memorable." He said calmly. "You've done that before."

She looked back with a smile and blushed slightly. "You were pretty amazing yourself." She replied, ignoring the subtle question.

Smirking, Fred sat up and rubbed his eyes. He would have to be up soon, mum would start shouting and screaming, complaining about the toast and then she would go in his room and – "Bullocks!"

"What?" Hermione jumped, gracefully holding the duvet to her chest the entire time.

"Mother. We need to be in the kitchen before anyone else gets up or we are screwed!" Fred said, reaching to his left and grabbed his clothes, throwing them on as quickly as possible.

Hermione, taking the duvet with her, waddled over to her suitcase and, still with a surprising amount of grace, put some clothes on swiftly. "What if everyone's already downstairs?"

"They can't be, it's way too early… I'm sure." He was reaching around on the floor looking for his other sock and Hermione couldn't help giggling. "Well, I can't go down with one sock, how weird would that be?"

"Not as weird as if you didn't go down at all." Hermione said, beginning to rush now. "Besides, no one would be surprised if you went down with only one sock, you're a bit forgetful sometimes and only your mum would mention it."

Fred shrugged and stood up. Hermione silently opened her door and peered outside, then signalled to Fred to follow her down the stairs. Still going as quietly as they could, the pair skipped down both flights, trying to hold in the giggles. Finally they made it to the hall way in front of the kitchen, Fred facing Hermione who was on the bottom step.

"Well, time to face the music." She sighed; part of her didn't want it to end. She just wanted one final kiss, to help make it through the day. But before she made it to his lips, Molly opened the door to the kitchen.

"Fred?" She looked confused.

Luckily, Hermione hadn't reached the danger boundary and Fred took it upon himself to save the moment. "Alright mum, just celebrating because I beat Hermione to the bottom! You may worship me now." He bowed to both of the women in the hall, then strutted into the kitchen and took an empty seat.

"Well, in all fairness, you did have a head start." Hermione retorted, taking the seat next him and smirking at him as Molly glared at the pair from across the room.

"Here you go." She said, placing two pieces of cheese on toast before the two of them. Hermione picked hers up to find it was cold. "It was ready half an hour ago, when I began calling the pair of you. Fred?"

"Yes mum." He said, munching his cold toast.

"Why on earth are you in yesterday's clothes?" Molly put her hands on her hips and everyone jumped. Lupin grabbed a newspaper and hid behind it, George dropped a spoon and went under the table, where he then stayed, Mr Weasley jumped up and left the room claiming he heard his name, Hermione went over to the fridge and Fred just sat there like a rabbit caught in headlights.

It was too late to run, so he had to think. "I figured that since there's a war on, there'd be rationing of detergent or something."

"Fred Weasley, as long as the Muggles are alive there will be detergent! Now, for the love of Merlin, put on some new clothes!" She was red in the face, so red her face and hair seemingly merged and to make matters worse Fred just looked blank. She fumed as she watched him slowly stand up, nod to her, then walk calmly out of the door.

Hermione took her face from out of the fridge and smiled at Mrs Weasley. "I'm going to go and brush my teeth." She backed out of the kitchen, while the others all thought of excuses to leave. Everyone wished they'd had Arthur's idea and left as soon as it turned ugly. Molly just huffed around, getting more and more volatile.

Once she had made it up the stairs, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. She was out of the belly of the beast.

"Hey, Hermione." She turned to the whisper to see Fred's head peeking out of his bedroom door. She walked over, only to get pulled into his room by the arm. "She's gone nuts, hasn't she?"

Hermione couldn't talk. She was too busy admiring the topless Fred that was standing before her. _When did he develop a six pack? _It was only then that Hermione realised just how little time they had spent on the before and after, for her to have missed that.

"Hermione." He sang, waving in front of her face. "Mum, was she pissed?"

"Yeah…" she said, then shook her head. "Yes. I escaped pretty quickly, I guess I'm lucky. George is hung over and still down there. If there was anyone I'd hate to be right now…"

"Yeah. Some people just can't hold their entire bottle of whiskey, then deal with an evil mother." Hermione just stared blankly at him. "Are you ok?"

"Fred, what happened last night… Would it be weird if I wanted it to happen again?" She was looking at her feet now, practically awaiting the rejection.

"Not really, it was incredible." He scratched his head, looking rather dopey yet proud.

"I'm not talking about that, not say that part wasn't great, because it was. It was amazing, fantastic, fireworks even. I meant the before bit. The bit where you called me sweetie, the bit where you comforted me and told me I did my best. It sounds cheesy but to me that was the best part. God, you must think I'm a sap, an immature teenager like yourself."

"Would it be weird – No, sorry, that's too cheesy. Let's just say, I'm not as immature as you think I am." Fred bent down to draw her attention. "That bit was pretty fantastic too. I think that you're more fantastic then you're going to give yourself credit for. That's why last night was incredible, not because of the alcohol, the mood, the desire or the sex. It was being with you and god I just said all of that, didn't I?"

Hermione nodded and the two smiled at each other. He felt the urge to kiss her, but hesitated for a second. The longer he waited for her taste, it seemed to him the better it would be. So he waited, just for a second, then kissed her.

And she tasted fantastic.

* * *

**I do make Hermione get around a far bit, but that's more from a different story. **

**So, what did you think of my fairytale ending?**


End file.
